Aquatic ecology and Biodiversity

Practical 13- Study of natural pond habitat and organisms

Experiment No. 13
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A pond is a body of standing water, either natural or man-made, usually smaller than a lake. A wide variety of man-made bodies of water are classified as ponds, including water gardens. While fish ponds are designed for commercial fish breeding, and solar ponds designed to store thermal energy. Standing bodies of water such as puddles, ponds and lakes are distinguished from a water course, such as a brook, creek, or stream via current speed. While, currents in ponds and lakes possess thermally driven micro currents and moderate wind-driven currents. These features distinguish a pond from many other aquatic terrain features, such as stream pools and tide pools.
Formation of ponds
Ponds can result from a wide range of natural processes, severely constrained by human activity. Any depression in the ground which collects and retains a sufficient amount of rain water can be considered a pond, and such depressions can be formed by a variety of geological and ecological events.
Characteristics of ponds
Some ponds have no surface outflow draining off water and ponds are rain fed. Hence, because of the closed environment of ponds, such small bodies of water normally develop self contained ecosystems. Ponds' calm waters are ideal for insects and other water dwelling invertebrates. This includes the pond skater, the water boatman, the diving beetle, the whirligig beetle and the water scorpion. The pond needs plants within it, too, of three kinds: marginal, submergent and floating. Natural ponds supports verities fish population.

Submerged weeds: Submergent plants, also called oxygenators, live underwater. They're important to aquatic species -- fish, plants and everything else -- because they absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen just as terrestrial plants do. They help keep water clear and alive.

Marginal (emergent) plants have their roots in shallow water and their shoots growing above the water. Plant these along the margin, they offer hiding and mating places, surfaces for eggs and critters to cling to and beauty.

Characteristics of water
Physical: Temperature------------ Colour / Odour-------- Turbidity------------------
Chemical: pH------------ Do------------------ Salinity---------------------------
Aquatic communities:
Phytoplankton,zooplankton, fishes and Aquatic weeds – floating , submerged and marginal types
Species diversity and association of organisms
Inferences